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Dennis Gorya

Tidal Commerce is a Toronto-based, outcome-focused eCommerce engineering firm with a talented in-house team and a portfolio of notable clients across Canada and the United States.

Tidal is an elite Shopify Plus partner with a curated ecosystem of technology partners helping merchants build and manage their digital store infrastructure, optimize customer experience, and convert traffic to sales more efficiently.

As an SBU of Umbrella Incorporated, Tidal is uniquely enabled to take a holistic view of your business and provide end-to-end commerce services from hardware to software consulting, implementation and management.

Our vision is to “Be the tide”.

Tell us about yourself?

I started working at age 13 at a magic shop in downtown Toronto. I had a knack for sales and got a job keeping me busy on weekends and days off from school. I met a mentor of mine at age 15. He quickly became a family friend and like a father to me. He took me under his wing and gave me an internship at his company – my first assignment was to learn ASP.NET programming. The exposure I got to the business at this age greatly benefited my development as our firm was designing and developing custom CRM systems for large enterprises. Within a year, he offered an opportunity to work at another one of his firms, selling hardware and software solutions to enterprises. We scaled very quickly, which again was a huge learning moment for me, especially at such an age (16 to 17). I then started a clothing company and scaled to a decent enough point where I could pay my way through school. Around the end of the first year, I had wrapped up that company and started another… an agency this time.

Today, I lead Tidal alongside my wise and generous partners. We are a family business with a fantastic service culture for our clients and our communities.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Love is circular, but it doesn’t always come directly from who you shell it out to.

What problem does your business solve?

Commerce problems for mid-market and enterprise leaders. We see everything pertaining to commerce and often get to create new innovative solutions for our clients.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

We all like to be of service and bring our best. That inspired us to collectively “Be the tide” and create the gold standard for commerce services. We believe that if you are the best at it and you treat people well, the clients will come along for the long haul.

What is your magic sauce?

What we do is not unique. How we do it is. We focus on six core values:

  • Not all problems are equal
  • Have a contingency
  • The results matter
  • Show up as your best
  • Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose
  • Be of service

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We have plans to 10 times our firm, which would make us one of the largest commerce services businesses in North America. We aspire to be the tide and to be of service to others who need the help.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

We are a services business which can only scale as fast as we can hire and train people. Finding clients in our niche is very difficult.

How can people get involved?

Are you looking for a technology partner that finally gets you and e-commerce (Shopify)? We are the gold standard of managed services trusted by the most successful brands on Shopify Plus. Reach out to me to chat more about your business and to hear some of our case histories on how we have helped the largest Shopify brands turn a corner on their digital operations.